Tlatlatoc (MH500r)

Tlatlatoc (MH500r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the personal name Tlatlatoc (here, attested as a man's name) shows a partial (head and chest), reclining body in profile, facing upward. It appears to be a man, given the hair cut and style, short and over the ears. Flames and smoke [from tlatla, to burn] arise from the body, curling back toward the face. The person's eye does appear to be open, but the final part of the name, -toc, may come from the verb toca, to bury. So, this may be a person who is deceased and whose corpse has been set on fire. The -toc suffix also means to be lying down, prone, stretched out, prone, sometimes asleep. (See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary, using the link below.)

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The fire representing the verb to burn (tlatla) is very different here from the flames in a place glyph in the Codex Mendoza (see below). The verb could be interpreted has having both an alphabetic reduplication and a visual one. But many examples of flames and fire are not necessarily reduplicated alphabetically.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

reduplication (in gloss/text)

reduplication (visual)

verb

preterit tense

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Death, decay, decomposition

Fire, Tobacco, Incense, Smoke

Gender (male)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

Keywords:

death, muerte, muertos, entierros, cremación, cremaciones, acostado

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tlatla, to burn, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlatla
-toc, to be lying down, prone, stretched out, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/toc-1

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 500r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=79&st=image

Image Source, Rights:

This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).

Historical Contextualizing Image: